


livewire (take me higher)

by isabelaofrivaini



Category: Sally Face (Video Game)
Genre: Hormone therapy, M/M, Needles, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, Secret Crush, Trans Male Character, Trans Sally, uhhhh idk what else to tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 07:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11573127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabelaofrivaini/pseuds/isabelaofrivaini
Summary: A bang on the front door that's too harsh to belong to his dad is audible from the bathroom. Shit. Larry. Not known for his good timing. Not that it's such a bad thing, Larry being here, but he doesn’t like being in his superhero-themed pajama shorts in front of his best friend. It's embarrassing, man."Sally Face!" he cheers. "Your dad said to just come right up since you're probably just being a lazy asshole anyway!""I'm taking my shot, so I'm being a productive asshole, thanks!" Sally calls.





	livewire (take me higher)

**Author's Note:**

> I'VE GOT A LOT OF THINGS PLANNED FOR THIS FANDOM BOIS  
> including a pretty lengthy chapter fic that basically has slow burn and a new big bad ...... are y'all ready
> 
> anyway, since i dont know if anyone will read this in the first place, please enjoy!!!!
> 
> larryjohns0n on tumblr :)
> 
> -
> 
> this is not canon compliant since we're not 100% sure what happened to diane fisher so i just ... i figured it was the same thing that happened to sal

Sally likes to think that he's pretty independent. Like, dude, he's fifteen. He can go wherever he wants, as long as it's reasonable. Soon, he'll be able to get his license and then he can really do whatever.

 

This independence spread to his T shots.

 

Mom was the one who used to do it, before she died. Ever since they'd determined that Sal was old enough to be switched from puberty blockers to testosterone, she'd been the one helping him inject it. But then she'd died, and it had been his fault, so he'd tried to do it on his own. It was only once a week, after all, he could do it, right? (They'd started out with doing t every two weeks, but the sheer volume of the injection made Sal's butt hurt forever, so his old doctor had recommended changing it to smaller doses once a week. He only has a little pain now.)

 

But his hands had shook so much that he'd nearly missed the injection site he'd intended, so Sal had gotten his dad to help out. He would have been able to do it, really, if it hadn't been such a Sal&Mom thing. But it was. After that first time, though, he'd been able to stop shaking, so now he does it by himself.

 

Sitting on the floor since the toilet seat's a little broken, switching up his larger gauge needle used for drawing up for a smaller one used for the actual injection, Sal's pretty focused. He'd just gotta find the right-

 

A bang on the front door that's too harsh to belong to his dad is audible from the bathroom. Shit. Larry. Not known for his good timing. Not that it's such a bad thing, Larry being here, but he doesn’t like being in his superhero-themed pajama shorts in front of his best friend. It's embarrassing, man.

 

"Sally Face!" he cheers. "Your dad said to just come right up since you're probably just being a lazy asshole anyway!"

 

"I'm taking my shot, so I'm being a productive asshole, thanks!" Sally calls, and, in response to his voice, hears footsteps come up to the bathroom door. 

 

"Ooh, can I come in? Ya decent?" Of course Larry's the type of person who finds needles cool. Or, in his words, "gnarly." Not that Sally's sure that he's ever actually head Larry  _say_ the word gnarly, but it seems like a Larry thing to do.

 

"Uh, yeah, Lar."

 

His best friend, in his usual SF shirt, flings the door open and startles at the sight of him on the floor. "The hell, little dude? You just camping down out there? How you gonna needle your butt if you're sitting on it?"

 

Sal's not sure that needle's a verb, but he doesn't say anything. "I usually just do my thigh," he explains while wiping down his thigh with an alcohol pad, and then, in his doctor voice, "'The optimal location is on the front of the thigh and above the knee." He's pretty sure that's just common sense, but then again, Larry hasn't really had to deal with this stuff like he has.

 

He can't actually make an injection until Larry has stopped moving around, so he waits until his friend settles in on the edge of the bathtub. "I've never done this with an audience before," he hums, and then, with the restlessness of someone who knows this is going to hurt, presses the needle in.

 

Sal hisses at the same time Larry does. Man, he hates needles. Even before he knew that his assigned gender was not for him, he'd dreaded getting shots. And now, having to administer them by himself every week? It gets less scary, but it never really gets less painful.

 

But it's over quickly, like always, and cleaning up is so routine by now that he can pay attention to what Larry's saying.

 

"That looks like it hurts," Larry says. "You do that by yourself? Man, Sal, you are punk rock."

 

Sal snorts, knowing that's supposed to be a compliment. "Thanks, man."

 

"No prob. Hey, wanna walk down to the ice cream shop?"

 

-

 

They have a system going whenever they want to eat together. They go down to Larry’s room, where the only person who can walk in on them is Lisa, and Sally faces the canvas to eat his while Larry sits facing the other way. Sal doesn’t like taking his mask off, since it keeps his old injuries clean, so he only lifts it up enough to give him room to eat the ice cream. However, Sal has to try to eat it from the left side of his mouth, since the right side of his mouth is missing some lip and never healed quite right.

 

“I don’t get why you like strawberry ice cream,” Larry says. “It’s grody. You should be a moose tracks guy, like me.”

 

“Moose are gross,” Sal says. “They have, like, ticks that explode.”

 

“Huh,” Larry says. “Gross.”

 

They’re quiet for a bit, then, with just Sanity’s Fall playing in the background. It’s not as loud as it usually is, since Sal had asked for it to be quieter while his face was, well, a little bit exposed. Even though Larry’s door locks, he’d like to be able to hear in case someone decides to come in.

 

It’s nice, having friends that you can just have comfortable silences with. Sal’s either constantly talking or not talking at all, so having someone who can match him, and not think that he’s mad? It’s real nice.

 

“We should go see them in concert, dude,” Larry says. “They’re comin’ to Philadelphia next month, that’d be fun, right?”

 

“Yeah, dude!” Sal says. He was really never the type of person to say _dude,_ but after Larry started being the person he hung around the most, it grew on him. It kind of goes both ways, though, like when Larry had asked the ice cream guy for jimmies because Sal had said it first. It was funny, the way they learned from each other like that. “You think there’s still tickets available? It’s cutting it pretty close, after all.”

 

“Nah, we’ll be fine,” Larry’s voice sounds from behind him. Even though they’re not facing each other, Sal knows that Larry’s probably shrugging his shoulders in that way he does whenever he tells Sal anything. They know each other. They’re becoming fluent in each other’s languages, so to speak. 

 

For a brief, fleeting second, Sal feels the heat of a blush spreading all over his face. He was never one to have a nice blush, rather making him look like a tomato. (A lucky part of having a mask. Perhaps the only lucky part.) Would this be the right time to tell Larry that he-?

 

But Larry’s still talking, and interrupting people with love confessions isn’t exactly polite. “After all, Sanity’s Fall isn’t that big of a -“

 

“Boys!” Lisa’s voice calls through the door, followed by a sharp knock. “Can I come in?”

 

And the moment’s broken. Sal scrambles to put his cup of ice cream down and grabs the edges of his mask, tugging it upward.

 

-

 

“You can have surgery, you know,” his dad says, exactly a week after ice cream with Larry. They’re eating gross microwavable soup that tastes like moldy cheese.

 

Sal frowns at his spoon, misinterpreting the statement. “Didn’t you want me to wait until I was eighteen for that?”

 

His dad, always a little uncomfortable (but always as supportive as he can be) at the mention of Sal being trans, stammers. “Er, no. Not that surgery. I just meant - have you ever heard of a skin graft?”

 

Of course Sal has. He’s researched it a thousand times. The surgery to take skin from parts of the body and replace them in other parts, to put it simply.

 

His face…

 

The idea makes him feel all sick, so he pushes his soup away. His dad blabbers on. “Of course it would have to be more than one surgery, but it would be covered by insurance, so you don’t have to worry about that part. It’d probably take a long time to actually be set in stone, but I thought that you’d like to know that it’s an option.”

 

Sal wishes his father had never brought it up. Dreaming about having his old face back, and having the option of covering up his injuries be _real_ are two very different things. He knows, in his heart, that his dad blames him a little for Mom’s death. He knows it from the sad look in his dad’s eyes when they hold eye contact for more than a moment. He blames himself, too, so his dad’s not alone in his thinking. Neither of them would ever say it out loud, but it’s always there. It’s the elephant in every room.

 

So, how can he say _no_? If his dad wants him to be _normal,_ since their life is anything but, should Sal really take that away? After everything his dad has done for him?

 

“I … don’t know,” Sally says.

 

“Right, right,” his dad chirps. “Of course. It’s a big decision. There’s no rush.”

 

“Right,” Sal echoes, but nothing’s right at all.

 

-

 

His dad leaves to get groceries and Sal has a panic attack on the bathroom floor.Th parts of his legs that aren’t covered by his Spider-Man shorts are freezing from the too-cold AC that makes the floor constantly chilly, and yet his skin under his sweater is covered in cold sweat. Gizmo’s scratching on the door, begging to be let in, but Sal can’t get up. Can’t move. He’s trying to breathe but no air is going into his lungs, and he feels like he’s dying.

 

But this isn’t the first time, so he knows that he isn’t. He knows that he won’t die and join the ghost population of Addison Apartments. But it sure feels that way.

 

The needle in his hand that he’d been trying to inject into his thigh - the left one, this time - is shaking, but he needs to do this, he _needs_ to…

 

But this was his mom’s task, back in the day. She’d make jokes and smile and her blonde hair would be tied back to avoid having anything get tangled. She could have it done in a second, but he can’t, because he’s too tied up in memories of her to even stick a needle in his fucking leg.

 

Sal only realizes that the door's been opened when Gizmo bumps against his foot. He looks up and expects to see his dad, or expects to come to the realization that his cat has door-opening superpowers, but he doesn’t get either of those things. Instead, he sees Larry, who looks like this is the absolute last thing he expected to walk into.

 

A beat passes, and Sal would really like to ask Larry about the weather or something equally random to break the tension, but his vocal chords aren’t working. All he can do is watch as Larry gently picks up Gizmo, (who loves him, the asshole,) and places him outside of the bathroom. His best friend comes back in and shuts the door behind him.

 

“Okay,” Larry says. “You’re gonna have to talk me through this, man. The only time I’ve ever put a needle in _anything_ is when I thought it would be a good idea to pierce my nose. It was a horrible idea, by the way, I took it out a week later.”

 

Having Larry inject him is an _awful idea._ “I can-“ Sally says, but he can’t. Because it was his mom, it was _her,_ and oh God, why had his dad had to bring up that stupid surgery? If he hadn’t, everything would be okay…

 

“Nah, be quiet,” Larry says, too lighthearted to be honest. “I got this. Just tell me what to do.”

 

Sal takes a breath and tries to will his voice to work. “Well, first of all, wash your hands.”

 

He talks him through the disinfectant and switching the bigger needle for the smaller one. “You want to get into the muscle,” he says, quieter than he usually speaks but, hey, at least he’s talking. “I switch thighs every time, so today’s the right one.”

 

“What’s the point of switching thighs?”

 

“Less pain.”

 

Larry asks a lot of questions, but none of them are malicious, so Sal answers them. Maybe it’s just an attempt to get him to _talk,_ but it works. He even laughs for a moment while explaining to Larry that no, bro, he wasn’t too young for T at fifteen.

 

It hurts less than usual, the actual injection. Maybe it’s because Larry’s the one doing it, maybe it’s because his body still isn’t feeling things quite right from after his panic attack, but it’s easier.

 

Sal half-expects Larry to just bail afterwards, because, ew, emotions. He doesn’t, though. Instead, he lets the cat back in and sits next to Sal, putting his arm around him. The cat crawls into Sal’s lap and the three of them just sit there.

 

Sal doesn’t know what Larry’s thinking about, and he’s planning on apologizing and asking to never bring it up again, but what comes out of his mouth instead is:

 

“I got my mom killed.”

 

 _Fuck._ Sal sits there, for a second, wondering what had compelled him to say that after _years_ of not saying anything about it at all. But he hasn’t been able to mention it forever, so now that he’s started, he can’t stop. Too numb to be anything but blunt, he says, “there was a dog. It ripped my face off and she came to stop it but on the way - She died. It was my fault. And _she_ always did this but my dad told me that I could get skin graft surgeries and all of a sudden everything was _her_ again.”

 

It’s only when he stops to take a breath that Larry speaks. He holds Sal a little tighter and says, “shit.” Just “shit.”

 

Sal thinks that “shit” is pretty appropriate, all things considered. “It’s not _fair,_ ” he says, well aware that he sounds like a whiny child. He _is_ a whiny child. “She loses her _life_ and I get, what - a _face_ back? How is that fair at all? How come I get everything back when it was my fault?”

 

Larry pauses. “You don’t _have_ to get it, man,” he says. “I like your prosthetic.”

 

It’s so much more complex than that, but Sal’s too tired to explain it.

 

“I dunno,” Sal says. If he tried to tell Larry that he owed it to his dad, his friend would just say that he didn’t owe anyone anything. “Let’s… just sit here.”

 

So, with one hand propping his mask up and the other stroking Gizmo, that’s what they do.

 

(They start talking on their walkie talkies every night that they’re not in the same room. _Sally Face_ has never felt as good of a name as it does when it comes out of Larry’s mouth.)

**Author's Note:**

> i love all of you
> 
> -
> 
> it could be implied that sal never _does_ get the surgeries, due to the fact that prison-sally face still has his mask, but idk if you want this could be an AU


End file.
